Kenya: Ck Needs Quick Internal Change

24 April 2011

Nairobi — Many years ago, when Benjamin Ayimba and Oscar Osir were still playing for the national sevens rugby side that was known more for finishing at the bottom in every competition than for doing anything else, the management and writers who used to cover the sport had an unwritten agreement that the word ‘lose’ should not appear in the match reports.

As such, phrases like “went down fighting” (when the team lost) and “saved the best for the last” (when the side lost by a small margin in a final match of a certain competition) were the only ones that were used to describe the perennial losing streak.

Once, I defied warnings from rugby writers, and wrote a piece asking why Bob Githinji was still being retained as the coach despite a poor record.

After that piece, I waited to be used as a ball in a rugby match, since I had been warned by rugby writers that I was risking life and limb by writing “negative” stories about the “untouchable” and “unreachable” rugby fraternity, sorority and the management which was being referred to in hushed tones as the “Ngong Road Mafia.”

It did not take long before the coaching staff was replaced, and things started looking up a bit, but the rugby sympathisers started accusing me of “firing” Mr Githinji.

I did not take the credit.

Last week, after the coach of the national cricket team was fired, a former cricketer told me that I should take the credit for forcing CK to let go off Eldine Baptiste. Ideally, his poor record was public knowledge, just like Mr Githinji’s was then, but no one wanted to point it out.

For all that period, Mr Baptiste was retained by none other than the Cricket Kenya Board, which always had a raft of lame excuses even when it was crystal clear that the national side was on a downward slide and could not win any meaningful matches under the West Indian.

The CK Board had decided to look the other way and kept on insisting that things were looking up even when we were losing matches as if International Cricket Council had introduced a Worst Loser’s Award and we were going to receive wads of dollars for being its first winners.

Inasmuch as the recent changes – the firing of the coach and the captain – can be classified as cases of closing the stable door after the horses have bolted, it might be a starting step for CK to build a team which will not be in contention for the yet-to-be introduced Worst Losers’ Award.

Having written that, CK itself – which likes to be placated and praised at all times, and which operates like some sort of a Secret Society that has no blemishes, does everything right and only gets tripped by the media – might find it necessary to look inwards, and effect changes within the boardroom itself.

Unless that happens, all the promised changes, which are already being described as cosmetic, will yield no fruit and the standards of the game will continue to plummet and end up in a hole deeper than the one they currently are in.

AllAfrica – All the Time